Alabama has played 58 games at No. 1 under Nick Saban –– 34 more than it did under Bear Bryant https://trib.al/6OkgcXs

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When Alabama plays its next game against LSU on Nov. 4, it will be the 24th straight game the Crimson Tide has played as the No. 1 team in the AP poll. The streak started with the first game of the 2016 season, which Alabama started at No. 1 after winning the national title.

Do you know how many games Alabama played as the No. 1 team in the AP poll under Bryant? Total? The answer is 24.

Steve Spurrier won the Heisman while a UF QB/PK in 1966 only one year after Stokely-Van Camp had begun selling Gatorade. As a head coach, he led the '89 Duke team to their first bowl game since the Blue Devils defeated Lance Alworth and Arkansas in the '61 Cotton Bowl.

Spurrier returned to Florida to replace Waldon-native Gary Darnell. Darnell coached UF for seven games as a mid-season replacement for Galen Hall. His first Gator squad was ineligible for post-season play.

The Head Ball Coach was 87-12 in SEC games for the Gators. Florida was conference champions in '91, '93, '94, '95, '96, and 2000. The Gators were National Champs in '96.

Spurrier left Florida following the 2001 season. He received a five-year, $25 million contract with the Redskins. He is currently a Florida ambassador during hard times.

Ron Zook was a DB at Miami (O.), "The Cradle of Coaches". Zook became an assistant for Spurrier in '91 leaving Ohio State and Zook replaced him as Head Coach beginning with the '02 season. Zook's hiring generated a lot of energy among the fan base, not all positive. Three five-loss seasons ended Zook's career at UF. The practice of flying a banner over a game requesting a coach's firing became known as the "Zookification" of said coach.

Zook did not win a home game over a ranked foe and was criticized for puckering up at home. He coached consecutive road wins over LSU, Arkansas, and UGa in '03.

Ron Zook's SEC record was 16-8. He coached at Illinois until 2011 and was most recently the Special Teams coach of the Green Bay Packers.

Florida hired Utah head coach Urban Meyer who complimented Zook on the players he had left behind. Meyer's Utah team went undefeated winning the Fiesta Bowl over Pitt.

Urban Meyer had a 36-12 SEC record in six seasons at UF. His teams won the BCS-NC in '06 and '08 as well as the SEC-CG both seasons. Controversy surrounded Meyer's season ends in '09 and '10 regarding whether he would return. Meyer left UF after an 8-5 '10 season to spend "more time with family". He was named Ohio State's coach for the '12 season, one year after Jim Tressel's dismissal over the game uniform auction racket. Meyer is the fastest coach to 100 wins since Bud Wilkinson.

In 2008, Tejas hired Will Muschamp away from Auburn to be DC. Following the '08 season, Muschamp was named coach-in-waiting to eventually succeed Mack Brown. He could not wait long enough.

Florida hired Muschamp and he completed his first season in '11. His SEC record in '11 was 3-5 and UF finished 7-6 overall after winning the Gator Bowl. 2012 was a top ten season capped with an appearance in a BCS Bowl, a Sugar Bowl loss. In 2013, UF fell to 4-8 with an FCS loss to Georgia Southern. Muschamp started 2014 on the hot seat and despite a surprise win over Georgia in Jacksonville, a loss to South Carolina including two fourth quarter blocked kicks, led to AD Jeremy Foley announcing he would not coach beyond the end of the regular season. Muschamp's SEC record was 17-15 over four seasons. Failing to get the offense on track despite their wealth of talent proved to be his undoing though he was credited with helping to improve the academic and disciplinary environment. Muschamp was hired by Auburn to be their defensive coordinator in 2015. As head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks, his team currently sits in second place in the SEC East.

Jim McElwain was an assistant coach for 25 years with a notable stop at Bama as OC and QB coach from 2008 to 2011. He was head coach at Colorado State from '12 to '14 with a 10-2 record in 2014. Florida was able to make arrangements to meet his large buyout and McElwain was named Florida's head coach. McElwain joined Spurrier as the only rookie coaches at Florida to get SEC coach of the year. Florida won the SEC-E during a spell of weak division contenders in 2015 and 2016. McElwain was 16-8 in SEC regular season games when he was fired on Sunday, Oct. 29 following a five-touchdown loss to Georgia. Earlier in the week McElwain mentioned receving death threats and he was not backed up by the University in any way.

Earlier in the week the justice system recommended diversion for seven Florida players who were charged with felony accounts of charge card theft. One player, Antonio Callaway, a 2017 Preseason All-SEC WR, has had multiple separate felony charges from sexual assault to the charge card scandal and has been given relief by the Florida system each time. This prevalent Florida issue has been glossed over during the week as the weight shifted to McElwain's firing and UF hoping it is with cause.

Defensive coordinator and former Miami head coach and Arkansas Razorback assistant coach, Randy Shannon will serve as interim coach as the Gators enter the final month of the 2017 regular season.

Scarblog: Those facts have become more interesting since Smart became the Georgia head coach. The shared history is fascinating this week as the No. 1 Bulldogs visit the Tigers in a huge game with conference and national title implications for both teams.

Smart is doing in his second season in Athens what Nick Saban did, with Smart's help, in his second season in Tuscaloosa. He's rebuilding a championship program in a hurry.

Malzahn, despite winning an SEC championship and playing for a national title quicker than Smart or Saban, has come back to earth as Five-Loss Gus. In his fifth season, he's two wins away from the SEC Championship Game - or perhaps two losses away from the end of his tenure.

The last time the SEC had potentially this much of a shakeup in its coaching ranks, there were only 48 states and Bear Bryant and Bob Neyland were prominently involved.

The year was 1946 and America was coming off World War II. Six schools in the 12-team SEC had new coaches that fall.

Since that season 71 years ago, the most new coaches we've seen in the SEC in a given year is four. It happened in 1962, 2005, 2009, 2013 and 2016.

It appears, though, that we might be on pace to challenge (and perhaps surpass) 1946 for all-time turnover in the SEC. Two schools (Florida and Ole Miss) have already made coaching changes, and up to five more might do as well.

This might be the year that Mississippi State's Dan Mullen finally leaves for another job. He's been prominently mentioned for the opening at Florida, as well as some others that might become available.

So that would be six. So who's the seventh?

How about Auburn's Gus Malzahn?

Right now, it appears that only Alabama's Nick Saban, Georgia's Kirby Smart, South Carolina's Will Muschamp and LSU's Ed Orgeron are virtual locks to be back at their schools next season. Things are also looking good for Missouri's Barry Odom, and Vanderbilt's Derek Mason is not yet on the hot seat (though that could change).

So what's your number for SEC coaching changes before the 2018 season?

While Muschamp has moved on well from his time at Florida and the Gators are eager to move on from his successor, it only seems apropos this week to compare the short and shorter tenures of Muschamp and McElwain in Gainesville.

They were eerily similar.

Both had some degree of early success that was couched by concerns about the quarterback. After a 7-6 debut, Muschamp led Florida to an 11-2 finish and Sugar Bowl appearance in his second season, but fans wondered if Jeff Driskel could take his game to the next level. McElwain led Florida to back-to-back SEC East titles to start his tenure, but he rolled through four QBs in the process, leaving many concerned about the lack of progress at the position. Their ultimate demise began with a respectable start to their third season. Muschamp started 4-1 (with a loss to Miami) in 2013 before losing seven straight games to end the season. McElwain started 3-1 this fall (with a loss to Michigan) and would have been 4-1 if the game with Northern Colorado wasn’t cancelled by a hurricane. Now the Gators have lost four straight and could well end the season on a similar slide to that 2013 team. Injuries demolished both rosters in those disappointing seasons. Florida has at least 15 players out this week — not including the nine suspended players. Both Muschamp’s 2013 team and McElwain’s final team also used three quarterbacks while searching for answers. Under both Muschamp and McElwain, the Gators failed to finish a season higher than 96th nationally in yards per game — and it’s a safe bet to remain true this year as they rank 111th. The program cracked the top 70 in scoring offense just once these last seven years, in Muschamp’s final 2014 season. This season, the Gators are 113th out of 129 FBS teams in scoring offense (20.6 points per game). One main difference is that Muschamp’s defenses remained elite throughout his tenure while the Gators have now given up at least 42 points in back-to-back games while tumbling to 78th nationally in points allowed (28.4 per game). The other is that Muschamp, who had a better relationship with the athletic administration, was allowed to return for a fourth year despite that 4-8 debacle, going 6-5 in 2014. McElwain was shown the door at the first chance Florida had to part ways, barely making it halfway through his third season.

In the end, both coaches left the program with plenty of questions for their successor to answer.

The argument can be made that Muschamp left the roster in better shape than McElwain.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Kentucky’s 44-21 win against Vanderbilt on Saturday was a big one for Mark Stoops. The Kentucky coach added another year to his contract and collected a $250,000 bonus.

Stoops signed a new contract in March that runs through the 2021 season. In that contract is a provision that automatically extends Stoops’ contract by one year after every season that Kentucky wins at least seven games. The Wildcats’ win against Vanderbilt was win No. 7 this season.

That seventh win extends Stoops’ contract through the 2022 season. The automatic extension will be two years if Kentucky wins 10 or more games this season, including postseason games.

Stoops’ salary this season is $3.75 million. His salary increases every year between now and his newly awarded 2022 season. Stoops will be paid $5 million in the 2022 season under his current contract structure.

“As you’ve seen in the world of college athletics, it’s really easy to have instability,” Barnhart said. “We’ve got a lot of it going on. The tenures of coaches, athletic directors, everyone is getting shorter and shorter. And so to be able to show continuity and strength. Mark is one of the most tenured coaches in our league with five years right now. That’s interesting to me. It just means that it’s really difficult to hang in there.”

But, man, as you move forward you have got to stop with some of the pointless behavior that made your job at Tennessee tougher than it should have been. It’s tough enough already, right? I’m not talking about football decisions, though the best coaches fit their system to their personnel more than they fit their personnel to their system. You do need to be a little more open-minded. Your offense isn’t making defensive coordinators sweat like it did 10 years ago.

I’m not talking about your catch-phrase addiction, either, and I actually agree with you — most of the clichés you churn out are said in other programs. Some of yours are over the top. You have to understand timing better and not spit them out when the fans are angry, and chill out on the obscure stats that illustrate how well you’re doing and insult the intelligence of everyone, and you must take more responsibility when things don’t go well. But there’s no question that when things are going well, nobody really cares about that stuff.

What I do know, as a sportswriter, is that your entire handling of the media aspect of your job was a disaster. And I believe it distracted you from doing this job to the best of your ability. It must have.

I can’t tell you to grow thicker skin for your next job. That’s you. I can tell you about strategy. Don’t waste time worrying about every little tweet you don’t like. Don’t waste time worrying about every little joke at your expense on the radio.

Don’t threaten to pull the credentials of specific reporters because it won’t work unless you have a reason much stronger than not liking the commentary. Don’t threaten the access of young reporters for comments that qualify as mild criticism at most. It’s embarrassing. Protecting your players, I get. Always thinking about recruiting and how media coverage affects it, I get.

Freaking out because of personal shots is counterproductive. You like to talk about avoiding "energy vampires," right? This is an "energy flesh-eating zombie," and you created it.

Most of all, Butch, don’t waste time at your next stop trying to find a stooge. You know what I mean. Special access in exchange for favorable coverage —

Tennessee will honor the terms of Jones’ current contract and pay him the full buyout on the deal, according to the letter. That means Tennessee will pay Jones approximately $8.2 million, but that figure will be mitigated by any salary Jones earns from his next job.

Jones will be paid in monthly installments until Feb, 28, 2021, according to the terms of his current deal with the university.

Currie said during his Sunday press conference that Jones was “fired without cause,” meaning Tennessee is obligated to honor the termination clause in his contract. Sunday was listed in the letter as the official date of Jones’ termination.

“As we discussed this morning the University of Tennessee is exercising its right to terminate your employment and your Employment Agreement,” Currie’s letter stated. “In accordance with … the Agreement, the University will pay you liquidated damages in the amount of $8,257,580.00, subject to all applicable state and federal tax and withholding requirements. The liquidate damages will be paid in monthly installments through February 28, 2021. The first payment will be paid on or before November 30, 2017. By the end of Friday, November 17, 2017, you must complete the University’s standard exit procedures, including return of all University property (keys, University IDs, computers, credit carts, courtesy cars, and any other University property in your possession).

“Please note that your obligations under … the Agreement, including without limitation your obligation to use your reasonable best efforts to mitigate the University’s obligation to pay liquidated damages by making reasonable and diligent efforts as soon as practicable following termination to obtain another comparably employment or paid services position.

“Nothing contained in this letter or omitted from this letter shall be construed as an admission or waiver of the University’s rights or remedies under the Agreement, all of which are expressly reserved.

#Vols interim head coach Brady Hoke claims he’d ‘love’ to be retained on new staff in Knoxville: http://bit.ly/2zHe9w5

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Hoke, who had been Tennessee’s associate head coach and defensive line coach, became the interim head coach after boss Butch Jones was fired Sunday. He came to Tennessee after stints as the head coach at Ball State, San Diego State and Michigan and then one season as the defensive coordinator at Oregon.

The veteran coach said in an interview on Finebaum that he and his family enjoy the city of Knoxville, as well as the current staff and players at Tennessee, and that he would like to stay after the head-coaching transition.

“Well, we’d love to be here,” Hoke said. “We enjoy Knoxville. We enjoy the kids on this football team. I think the staff, there’s a lot of great coaches on this staff, and more than that, they’re great mentors and great men.”

Hoke, whose first game as interim head coach is Saturday night against 20th-ranked LSU at Neyland Stadium, said he’s always had respect for the Tennessee program and knows how good the program has been and will be again in the future.

New deal, more money on way for South Carolina head coach Will Muschamp http://scne.ws/Q1Twsn #thestate #gg

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University of South Carolina officials expect to extend a contract extension, along with a raise, to head football coach Will Muschamp by early December, a source told The State on Friday.

Muschamp is in his second season with the Gamecocks, who were 6-7 in his first year and are 7-3 this year headed into Saturday’s 4 p.m. game against Wofford in Williams-Brice Stadium. Muschamp signed a five-year deal in December of 2015 when he took the job. Completing a new deal before the Dec. 20 early signing period would be expected to help boost, or at least solidify, South Carolina’s recruiting this season.

Muschamp earned $3.1 million, making him the 11th-highest paid coach in the Southeastern Conference and 37th-highest paid in [our] nation...

Steve Spurrier, the man Muschamp replaced as head coach, said earlier this season that Muschamp deserved consideration for SEC coach of the year honors.

wo days after 9/11, Curry -- then working for ESPN -- was on his way to Birmingham to call the Alabama-Southern Miss game, which at that point was still scheduled to be played. While at a gas station in Attalla, he received a call on his cell phone telling him the game had been postponed (it would eventually be played at the end of the regular season).

Curry relayed that news to the gas station clerk, who told him that the high school football games in the area were still on for that week. "In Attalla, Alabama, on Friday night, we're going to play football, because it means a lot to us!," Curry said the clerk told him.

"Football's the only sport in which every player needs every teammate on every play just to survive," Curry said he was reminded that day. "The United States of America is structured similarly. We seem to have forgotten that fact."

Former Ole Miss coach Tommy Tuberville was back at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium on Saturday thanks to a color analyst assignment for the ESPN2 broadcast of the Rebels’ game against Texas A&M.

Tuberville, who left Ole Miss nearly two decades ago to take the head coaching job at Auburn, once said that you’d have to carry him out of Oxford in a pine box when describing his loyalty to the program. It may have been 20 years, but Rebels fans have not forgotten.

In what now appears to have been a failed attempt to troll the former Ole Miss head coach, the Rebels video staff put an old video of Tuberville leading the Ole Miss crowd in its Hotty Toddy chant onto the big screen at the stadium prior to the start of the second half.

A day after Ole Miss made the very odd and ultimately poor choice to play a video of former coach Tommy Tuberville on the video board at Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, the Rebels athletic director has issued an apology.

It was a trolling attempt gone wrong, and after the Ole Miss staffer who played the video apologized late Saturday night, AD Ross Bjork took full responsibility on Sunday afternoon.

"Jay and I function very well. We functioned well before he decided to retired; we function very well since he's decided to retire," Auburn president Steven Leath told AL.com Monday night. "Jay functions like all my other most senior direct reports in that they run their divisions. I tend to not be a micro manager, they come to me with really big decisions so there's no surprises.

"If there's big decisions to be made in athletics over the next couple of months while we're searching (for a new athletic director), Jay will do like he normally does and come and sit with me and we'll work through them together. That gives us some continuity and it also keeps me consistent with my management style as to not micromanage, but to be informed."

A&M coach Kevin Sumlin will be fired following the Aggies' regular-season finale at LSU on Saturday night, multiple people with knowledge of the situation said.

Sumlin is expected to be dismissed in the day or days following the A&M game against the Tigers. The Aggies are a double-digit underdog to the Tigers, and an A&M victory wouldn't save his job at this point, the sources said.

A resolute Sumlin said Tuesday at his weekly press conference that he expects to be A&M's coach next season.

Aggies have been good but not great under the sixth-year coach, failing to reach double-digit victories in the last five seasons since finishing 11-2 in Sumlin's first season and A&M's first year in the SEC in 2012.

Even that season A&M finished third in the SEC West behind Alabama and LSU, and the Aggies haven't come close to competing for a division title since. Sumlin has two years remaining on his contract that pays $5 million annually, and the two sides are expected to negotiate a buyout in the range of $10 million.

The Aggies (7-4, 4-3) have finished 8-5 in each of the last three seasons, and would need an upset of LSU and a bowl victory to better that mark by a game this season. LSU has won all five of the team's prior meetings as SEC opponents, a tidbit particularly irking A&M's fan base, as the Aggies have tried establishing the Tigers as division rivals.

Asked if he would have been thought of differently at A&M had he won a few of those games against LSU, Sumlin replied, "It would probably be different if I won a couple of games against other people, too."

A&M invested about a half-billion dollars in rebuilding Kyle Field and expanding its capacity to more than 102,000 fans a few years ago, and attendance was down this season as A&M lost at home to division foes Alabama, Mississippi State and Auburn. A&M chancellor John Sharp, an unyielding force behind the Kyle Field rebuild, has been adamant about producing a program that will compete with Alabama and others for SEC titles.

The Aggies' top target is Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher, according to multiple insiders.

Brad Davis, Chris Rumph, Ja’Juan Seider and Tim Skipper are still on staff and will be on the road recruiting this week. Their future roles are still to be determined and there’s no timetable for any official announcements.

SEC Country has confirmed that Billy Gonzales and John Hevesy are now on Florida’s staff...

AL.com sports‏Verified account @aldotcomSportsIt's official – Joe Moorhead announced as Mississippi State's head football coach https://trib.al/Px7acIe

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44-year-old Moorhead joined James Franklin's Nittany Lions staff in 2016 after four years as head coach on the FCS level at Fordham, where he posted a 38-13 record. Penn State ranks seventh nationally in scoring offense this season, averaging 41.6 points per game.

"During our search, it became unequivocally clear who our next football coach was and that man was Joe Moorhead," Mississippi State athletics director John Cohen said. "Joe is a winner, a man of integrity with a blue-collar work ethic and an ability to motivate others that our student-athletes will gravitate to. His innovative offensive philosophy is a perfect fit for our program and will keep us on a path to competing for championships. I was also impressed with his detailed defensive plan. He will demand excellence on and off the field and maximize the resources we have to continue to be successful in the SEC."

Dan Mullen left Mississippi State Sunday after nine seasons to become head coach at Florida.

Moorhead's hiring leaves three openings for head coaches in the SEC: Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas A&M.

"It's a tremendous honor to be a Mississippi State Bulldog," Moorhead said. "I am thrilled to take the reins of an SEC program that has been as successful as this one has the past decade. I look forward to getting to know the young men on our team, hiring a staff and hitting the recruiting trail quickly. My family and I are excited about being a part of the Starkville community."

Aggies have lured Jimbo Fisher from Florida State to become their fifth coach this century, in their quest to win a conference title for the first time since last century.

Fisher, who won a national title at FSU in the middle of three consecutive ACC titles, replaces Kevin Sumlin, who was fired on Sunday after six seasons and finishing 16-20 against SEC West opponents in that span.

While his contract numbers have not been revealed, A&M officials involved in the deal have said he will make between $7 million and $7.5 million per year over at least five years. Sumlin made $5 million annually.

FSU has named associate head coach Odell Haggins as interim head coach against Louisiana-Monroe.

Part of this week’s weirdness enveloping FSU included on Wednesday night during the coach’s contractually-obligated Jimbo Fisher Call-In Show, a fan attending the show in a Tallahassee hotel asked Fisher, “I’m wondering, where is the loyalty to the program, Jimbo?”

Fisher, a former Samford University quarterback, is a native of West Virginia who has extensive experience in the SEC as a former assistant at Auburn and LSU, the latter serving as Nick Saban’s offensive coordinator when LSU won a national title in 2003.

Fisher will get quite an introduction at A&M: Two of his first four games are against Clemson and Alabama. The Tigers defeated the Crimson Tide in last year’s national title game, and Alabama won the national championship the year prior.

Fisher is 83-23 over eight seasons at FSU, and this season is easily his worst with the Seminoles. He has won at least 10 games in a season on six occasions, including the national title four years ago behind then-quarterback Jameis Winston, the 2013 Heisman Trophy winner.

Fisher inherits a young and talented squad from Sumlin, as 55 of the Aggies’ 82 players on a recent traveling squad were underclassmen.

Per Schlabach, some members that serve on Arkansas’ board of trustees argued that it owed Bielema only $5 to $6 million left on his deal while Bielema’s attorney argued for the full $15.4 million buyout. According to the report the deal is expected to be executed over the next few days.

Bielema’s buyout tops that of both Butch Jones and Kevin Sumlin. Jones received $8.25 million from Tennessee and Sumlin got $10.4 million from Texas A&M.

Tennessee introduced former coach Phillip Fulmer on Friday as the school's next athletic director, just hours after former AD John Currie was suspended.

Joined by Tennessee Chancellor Beverly Davenport at the podium, Fulmer made it clear he hoped to be a "stabilizing and unifying force through this."

Davenport relieved Currie of his duties after only 10 months on the job. Davenport would not take any questions on Currie or the coaching search.

"I want to be clear today," Davenport said. "We are hear to talk about the change in the leadership in the athletics department. I'm not going to talk about coaches at any other schools or any other places."

Fulmer said he had no timetable for the school's hiring of its next coach, nor does he have a list of candidates "because all of this has happened so fast."

"Our football program has the history, the facilities, the tradition and the resources to play with anyone, anytime," Fulmer said Friday. "And that's what we are going to do again."

Fulmer, the second-winningest coach in Tennessee football history after compiling a 152-52 career record in 17 seasons, knows for sure one man who won't be up for the job.

"I will not serve as interim coach," he said when asked if he would step in as a coach.

Thanks to the championship game victory, Smart will now get a $400,000 bonus, which replaces the $150,000 bonus he got from winning the SEC East.

He has a chance to rake in an even bigger bonus. If Georgia plays in the College Football Playoff, which it almost assuredly will, Smart will get a $500,000 bonus. If Georgia wins its first playoff game, Smart would get an extra $100,000 on top of the $500,000 bonus. If Georgia wins the national title, that bonus jumps to $1 million.

He also gets a $200,000 bonus if Georgia finishes in the top 5 of either the AP Top 25 or ... Coaches Poll.

Smart made $3.75 million this season, which ranked 23rd in [our nation].

For the last nine years, Megan and I have committed ourselves, and given everything we have to the Mississippi State Football program. I feel confident we are leaving the program in a much better position than when we took over, and with a bright future.

We want to thank all the Bulldog fans everywhere for their support and belief in us, and helping us build the program to where it is today.

Thank you to the MSU administration and athletic administration for their unbelievable support in building the program into nationalprominence.

We love every single one of the players that has been here and committed themselves to the program, and committed themselves to giving you a football team that you can be proud of both on and off the field.

For all the people that were so good to Canon and Breelyn, our Mississippi-born-and-raised children, your kindness could not have meant more.

We also thank many of you for so generously supporting our Mullen Family 36 Foundation, and helping each child in Mississippi have a better life and brighter future.

It has been an honor to call Mississippi home and be your Head Coach. We will always love Mississippi State University, our players, the fans, Starkvegas and the great people of Mississippi.

Thank you for an extraordinary nine years, filled with awesome memories.

“Strength and stability go hand in hand, and we have both in Coach Malzahn,” Auburn president Steven Leath said in a statement. “We’re excited for the future of Auburn football. This means a lot to the Auburn family.”

Malzahn agreed to a new seven-year, $49 million deal to remain as Auburn's coach on Sunday after rumors circulated that he might leave for the vacancy at Arkansas -- which was in hot pursuit of its native son to be the Razorbacks' next head coach. Malzahn instead decided to stay at Auburn and continue to build upon the foundation he has set over the last five years.

"I said before the season that the next three or four seasons are fixing to be our best, and I believe that more today than ever," Malzahn told ESPN's Chris Low. "We're on solid foundation and have a chance to do some special things."

In speaking to ESPN, Malzahn also expressed gratitude to Auburn president Steven Leath and the university's administration for reaching a new deal to secure the future of the football program, which went 10-3 this season with an SEC West division title and a berth in the Peach Bowl on Jan. 1 against No. 12 UCF.

Malzahn has gone 45-21 in his five seasons at Auburn, including a 25-15 mark in SEC play. His teams have won two division titles, an SEC championship, played for one national title and appeared in two New Year's Six bowl games during his tenure.

A&M confirmed its hiring of Jimbo Fisher as head football coach to a 10-year, $75-million contract on Monday.

Fisher resigned from Florida State Friday after eight seasons as head coach to join the Aggies. He takes over a Texas A&M program that went 7-5 this season under Kevin Sumlin, who was fired Nov. 26.

The 52-year-old Fisher -- who played quarterback at Samford and once was offensive coordinator at both Auburn under Terry Bowden and LSU under Nick Saban -- went 83-23 at FSU, winning the 2013 BCS national championship and three consecutive ACC titles from 2012-14. The Seminoles slipped to 5-6 this season before Fisher departed, but beat Louisiana-Monroe on Saturday to secure a bowl bid for the 36th consecutive year.

Only two college football head coaches made as much as $7.5 million in 2017 -- Alabama's Nick Saban and Clemson's Dabo Swinney. However, Saban's $11.1 million salary and Swinney's $8.5 million were largely comprised of one-time bonuses.

At this point, #Vols could have put a visor on a paper bag and I wouldn’t have cared. But to go through their past 25 days and end up with Jeremy Pruitt? That’s not bad, folks.

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Alabama defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt emerged from a 25-day had-to-see-it-to-believe-it search as the next head football coach at Tennessee.

The 43-year-old Pruitt has served as Alabama’s defensive coordinator the past two seasons. He spent the two seasons before that in the same position at Georgia, and the season before that in the same position at Florida State.

Pruitt, a native of Rainsville, Ala., played defensive back at Middle Tennessee State (1993-94) and Alabama (1995-96) and began his coaching career as a graduate assistant with the Crimson Tide in 1997. He then spent seven of the next eight seasons at the high-school level — though never as a head coach — before heading back to his alma mater in 2007 as the director of player development.

After three seasons in that support-staff role, Pruitt started his meteoric rise through the ranks in 2010. He spent three wildly successful seasons as Alabama’s defensive backs coach before heading down to Florida State for the defensive coordinator’s job. After one season — a national-championship season, at that — with the Seminoles, Pruitt spent two seasons under Smart as Georgia’s defensive coordinator before returning to Nick Saban’s flock as Alabama’s defensive coordinator in 2016.

Five years after it didn’t offer Smart when he was Alabama’s defensive coordinator, Tennessee will hire the new Smart — the latest in a long list of Saban proteges, and one who has been fast tracked to this point in his career for a reason.

“We want to be a big, fast, dominating, aggressive, relentless football team that nobody in the SEC wants to play,” said Pruitt, introduced Thursday night at Neyland Stadium by Vols’ College Football Hall of Fame coach and current AD Phillip Fulmer.

“Can we get there? I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think we could get there.”

Fulmer certainly wouldn’t have hired the 43-year-old Pruitt away from Alabama coach Nick Saban if he didn’t feel the same about the four-time national championship defensive coordinator.

“His energy and his enthusiasm, his background and his intensity all appealed to me greatly,” said Fulmer, who narrowed the search to Pruitt, former Tennessee player and current Auburn defensive coordinator Kevin Steele and Georgia defensive coordinator Mel Tucker.

“You can see and feel his passion for what he does, and he cares about young people.”

Pruitt grew up the son of a successful high school football coach before playing at Middle Tennessee and transferring to Alabama, where he played for College Football Hall of Fame coach Gene Stallings.

Stallings told SEC Country on Thursday that he has advised Pruitt to lean on Fulmer for advice, and to get started quickly on building relationships with head coaches.

New coaches will be Chad Morris at Arkansas, Dan Mullen at Florida, Joe Moorhead at Mississippi State, Jeremy Pruitt at Tennessee and Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M. Morris was SMU's head coach, Mullen was Mississippi State's head coach, Moorhead was Penn State's offensive coordinator, Pruitt was Alabama's defensive coordinator and Fisher was Florida State's head coach.

6 Are the most SEC teams in one year that had a different head coach to start a season than was coaching the team for the first game of the previous season. That came in 1946, but there's a qualifier for that first post-war season: Two of the coaches were returning to their pre-war jobs in Tennessee's Robert Neyland and Vanderbilt's Red Sanders. Next season will be the first in which five SEC members will open play with a head coach who is in his first year in that position at the school.

7 Fewer games were won by Arkansas in 2012 under John L. Smith than were won by the Razorbacks in 2011 under Bobby Petrino. That's the largest decline in victories for a first-year SEC coach. Smith's only Arkansas team went 4-8 after Petrino's final Arkansas team went 11-2. Petrino lost his job in a scandal in April 2012, and the Razorbacks turned to Smith, who'd been Arkansas' special-teams coach for the previous three seasons but had departed after the 2011 season to take over the Weber State program. In only three other instances has an SEC member changed coaches and won five or fewer games than it did in the former coach's final season. Each team won six fewer games -- Alabama under Mike DuBose in 1997, Alabama under Mike Shula in 2003 and Vanderbilt under Derek Mason in 2014.

7 SEC coaches did not win a game in their first seasons. Bear Wolf at Florida in 1946, Slick Morton at Mississippi State in 1949, Ears Whitworth at Alabama in 1955, Tommy O'Boyle at Tulane in 1962, Charley Pell at Florida in 1979, Jerry Claiborne at Kentucky in 1982 and Lou Holtz at South Carolina in 1999 didn't have a victory in their first seasons.

7 SEC coaches won at least 10 games in their first seasons. Bill Battle at Tennessee in 1970, Billy Kinard at Ole Miss in 1971, Mike Archer at LSU in 1987, Terry Bowden at Auburn in 1993, Les Miles at LSU in 2005, Gus Malzahn at Auburn in 2013 and Jim McElwain at Florida in 2015 reached double digits in victories in their first seasons.

8 Previous changes have featured a coach going directly from one SEC member to another, as Dan Mullen has in leaving Mississippi State after nine seasons for Florida. While several coaches have guided more than one SEC program, including three of the most successful in Paul "Bear" Bryant, Steve Spurrier and Nick Saban, the ones who have gone directly from one league member to another are Bill Curry (Alabama 1987-89 and Kentucky 1990-96), Doug Dickey (Tennessee 1964-69 and Florida 1970-78), Gerry DiNardo (Vanderbilt 1991-94 and LSU 1995-99), Red Drew (Ole Miss 1946 and Alabama 1947-54), Harry Mehre (Georgia 1928-37 and Ole Miss 1938-1945), Houston Nutt (Arkansas 1998-2007 and Ole Miss 2008-2011), Tommy Tuberville (Ole Miss 1995-98 and Auburn 1999-2008) and Chet Wynne (Auburn 1930-33 and Kentucky 1934-37). DiNardo, Drew and Tuberville had better records at their second stops than they did at their first. The others did not. Mullen had a 69-46 record at Mississippi State.

9 Are the most victories for a first-year Arkansas coach since the Razorbacks joined the SEC. Houston Nutt started his stay at Arkansas with a 9-3 record in 1998.

10 Are the most victories for a first-year Florida coach in the SEC era. Jim McElwain started his stay at Florida with a 10-4 record in 2015.

10 SEC coaches have won at least five more games in their first seasons than their predecessors won in their last seasons, topped by the nine-win improvement for Auburn under Gus Malzahn in 2013. The Tigers went from three victories in 2012 to 12 in 2013. Ole Miss made a seven-win improvement under Johnny Vaught in 1947. Six-win improvements were made by Auburn in 1993 under Terry Bowden and Ole Miss in 2008 under Houston Nutt. Five-win improvements were made by Ole Miss under Harry Mehre in 1938, Kentucky under Paul "Bear" Bryant in 1946, Auburn under Ralph "Shug" Jordan in 1951, Arkansas under Nutt in 1998, LSU under Nick Saban in 2000 and Ole Miss under Hugh Freeze in 2012

10 SEC seasons have started with the same head coaches on the sidelines as were on the sidelines for the first game of the previous season. Those years were 1937, 1957, 1959, 1965, 1966, 1968, 1972, 1988, 1992 and 2006.

12 Are the most victories for a first-year SEC coach. Gus Malzahn started his stay at Auburn with a 12-2 record in 2013.

23 SEC programs have changed coaches from one season to the next since 2010, including five for the 2018 season. That's the most in one decade in SEC history, eclipsing the 22 of the 1990s. The fewest coaching changes came in the 1980s, when there were 12.